Android TV Compatibility

[Freakk]

I have one issue and one request related to the compatibility of Aerodrums 2 with Android TV.

1. [Issue]: Unable to pair b]Bluetooth[/b] with Google Streamer .
Having the Aerodrums in the living room, in front of the TV, it would be great to be able to play along with content on the TV (YT videos, instructional videos, on-screen drum scores, ...), but Aerodrums is not seen as a valid Bluetooth audio device on Android TV v14.

2. [Feature request]: Android TV version of the Aerodrums 2 app, or downloadable APK to sideload it on Android TV.

Thanks.

[Richard]

Hi, thanks for letting us know about that pairing issue. We haven't had any reports yet about devices that couldn't be paired with so I'm not sure why it wouldn't work with Google Streamer.

I assume you're doing the following:
1) Running the Aerodrums 2 app on another device
2) Going to the Configuration → Bluetooth tab and pressing the Start Pairing button
3) Checking the list of available Bluetooth devices in Google Streamer

Could I ask you:
1) Does Aerodrums-XXXX appear in the list of devices that can be paired to?
2) If so, what happens when you try to pair to Aerodrums-XXXX?
3) When you attempt to pair to Google Streamer are you sure that your phone or another device hasn't already connected via Bluetooth to the Aerodrums 2 device as that could prevent the pairing from working?
4) Have you tried to pair any other Bluetooth speaker/headphones and, if so, did that work ok?

About the feature request, this is definitely something we want to support but haven't looked much into it yet. I think the APK hosted on Google Play Store is unlikely to work for at least two reasons:
1) The Aerodrums 2 app is built using the Unity game engine. It does have a Android TV Compatibility setting that can be enabled when building for Android but this is disabled in our builds.
2) The user interface is designed for touchscreens. We would need to add support for navigating the UI using D-pad controls for the app to be usable.
If you are interested in helping us test this let me know. It might not be much work to support. The main question is if Google Streamer has the graphics and networking capabilities that the app needs. Thanks.

[Freakk]

Hi Richard, thanks for replying to both the issue and feature request, it's much appreciated.

Let's start with feedback on the issue:

I assume you're doing the following:
1) Running the Aerodrums 2 app on another device
2) Going to the Configuration → Bluetooth tab and pressing the Start Pairing button
3) Checking the list of available Bluetooth devices in Google Streamer

Correct!
As for your questions:

1) Does Aerodrums-XXXX appear in the list of devices that can be paired to?

Not, it doesn't appear in the pairing list, while other Bluetooth audio devices do.

3) When you attempt to pair to Google Streamer are you sure that your phone or another device hasn't already connected via Bluetooth to the Aerodrums 2 device as that could prevent the pairing from working?

Yes, no device connected to Aerodrums via Bluetooth.
Pairing started on Aerodrums via the phone app, connected via wifi, but it's not discoverable on Google Streamer

4) Have you tried to pair any other Bluetooth speaker/headphones and, if so, did that work ok?

Yes, both combinations work:

• Aerodrums pairing as as Bluetooth audio output with other devices (Android, iOS, OSX)

• Other audio devices (Bluetooth earbuds, speakers) pairing as Bluetooth audio output with Google Streamer

The compatibility issue seems to be an edge case between Google Streamer (maybe Android TV 14 in general?) and Aerodrums 2's Bluetooth.

[Freakk]

And also thanks for giving the Android TV feature request some thought.

I managed to sideload the armeabi-v7a version of the APK on the Google Streamer (arm64-v8a not supported).

1) The Aerodrums 2 app is built using the Unity game engine. It does have a Android TV Compatibility setting that can be enabled when building for Android but this is disabled in our builds.

The app loads, but renders at 10 fps. Trying the Android TV compatibility feature would be a cool test, and I'm definitely open for trying it and giving feedback.

2) The user interface is designed for touchscreens. We would need to add support for navigating the UI using D-pad controls for the app to be usable.

That wouldn't be a problem, surely not for testing the feature, I did the test using a Bluetooth keyboard with trackpad, and could navigate all the menus without issues using the mouse pointer.